Page 38 of The Alpha's Chosen Outcast

“What am I going to do, Violet? I’m seriously starting to panic here.”

“We’ll figure this out. Trey will come up with something and until then, we’ll keep you safe. I haven’t even told my fiancé about you, and I don’t keep secrets from him. You can trust us, I promise you.”

“Trey can’t even come here and look at me after—” I stop abruptly.

“After what?”

“After he caught me leaving here,” I scramble to answer. “I don’t think he can stand to be around me anymore.”

“Nonsense. He has other things to do. He’s busy with important shit for our father and the company. He doesn’t need to be accompanying me every time I want to try on my dress.”

“I guess not.”

“It’s really a shame that my father is still Alpha. You definitely can’t marry him, but if Trey was the one in power, that’s a different story.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on, there’s no way he’d risk his power to marry me. That’s insane.”

“As insane as trying to find a stranger who might take pity on you?”

“No, I suppose you have a point there.”

“Of course I do. Heather, open your eyes. It’s obvious he has some sort of feelings for you.”

“He does not.”

Her eyebrows shot up into anoh-reallylook. “So that night when you made the stupid decision to go see your parents, and we brought you back here, nothing else happened?”

I feel my face turning beet red. “No, why would you think something happened?”

“Because while I’m prancing around here in my underwear so you can pin dress pieces on me, you’re obsessing about why he isn’t here .”

“I am not obsessing. That’s so unfair.”

“You’re totally obsessing, and now you’re blushing.” She giggles. “It’s going all the way up to your ears. Oh my god.” She erupts into full-blown laughter.

I turn away from her. “I don’t blush!”

“You do, too. You’re thinking about whatever happened that night and getting so hot and bothered that blood is rushing to your face. Don’t even try to deny it.”

I turn back and sit at the workroom table in one of the straight-back chairs, covering my face with my hands and leaning forward with a groan.

“Violet,” I say into the table, “what am I supposed to do with this?”

“Suck it up.”

“What?”

“Suck it the fuck up. I like you, and I really don’t want you to end up dead because you got picky about the only loophole thatkeeps you alive. Trey and I will help you make it bearable. We’ll be your friends. Even if you want to jump my brother’s bones.”

“When you put it that way…” I trail off.

We both burst into laughter, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this kind of connection with another human being besides Trey. And that was different. Violet is also a wolf.

I love my friends from the place I call home now, but they’re not like me in this one way. I can’t change with them. In fact, I haven’t been able to change with anyone in the past five years.

That nagging question returns: what are they going to think when they find out I’ve lied to them about this since the day I met them? What’s Jessie going to say?

In the end, this isn’t something I need to worry about right now because they’ll probably find out upon my death anyway.

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